ISLAMABAD: A French climber died after an avalanche struck a three-member international team attempting to scale K-6, a 7,282-metre peak in Pakistan’s remote northern Karakoram range, a tour operator said on Wednesday, the latest fatality to hit the country’s high-altitude climbing season.
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Barclays upgrades Pakistan dollar bonds to overweight, cites resilient external position
ISLAMABAD: Barclays has upgraded Pakistan’s dollar bonds to overweight, reversing a downgrade it issued in May, as the British bank pointed to improving oil market dynamics and what it described as an increasingly resilient external position, according to a research note cited by Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Armed men abduct eight police, including bomb squad officers, in South Waziristan
PESHAWAR: Unidentified gunmen ambushed and abducted eight police officers in Pakistan’s Upper South Waziristan district on Wednesday, seizing them as they returned from a bomb disposal mission in one of the country’s most volatile tribal regions, officials said.
Coalition partners demand apology, defence minister’s resignation over Kashmir identity slur
ISLAMABAD: The governing coalition showed rare public signs of strain on Wednesday as the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party demanded to know why a senior federal minister remained in his post after asserting that residents of the protest-hit Azad Jammu and Kashmir town of Rawalakot were not Kashmiris — remarks that also drew condemnation from a major religious party and a formal apology from a former prime minister on the minister’s behalf.
Pakistan-Iran ties deepen after Pezeshkian visit, but sanctions keep flagship projects on hold
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Wednesday that progress on a major gas pipeline and other economic ventures with Iran will move no faster than the lifting of international sanctions against Tehran, tempering expectations that a landmark visit by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian this week would quickly translate into concrete commercial gains.
Pakistan, Qatar vow to sustain US-Iran peace momentum as Hormuz diplomacy fans out across Gulf
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani spoke by telephone on Wednesday and expressed satisfaction on the opening round of US-Iran technical negotiations, pledging to sustain diplomatic momentum as the two co-mediating nations prepared to rejoin talks in Switzerland that are expected to resume early next week.
Pakistan to anchor fuel prices to import costs after industry backlash; foreign capital at risk
ISLAMABAD: The petroleum minister pledged on Tuesday to anchor fuel prices to actual import costs after oil company executives warned that seven formula overhauls in three months had erased a full year’s industry profits in a single pricing cycle and were pushing foreign investors toward the exit.
Six TTP militants killed in Lower Dir as security forces step up counterterror push
PESHAWAR: Security forces killed six suspected militants in a hillside firefight in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Wednesday, officials said, after intelligence tracked the same group believed responsible for a recent attack on a police checkpost that left a constable dead.
Pakistan passes budget as opposition walks out, censorship row erupts in parliament
ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly passed the federal budget for the next fiscal year on Tuesday after the opposition walked out of the chamber following an acrimonious debate in which the opposition leader accused the government of trampling the constitution and his speech was blacked out on state television and social media.
Abu Dhabi-backed port group bets $100 mln on Pakistan as Iran war reshapes regional shipping
KARACHI: The operator of Karachi’s main container and bulk terminal plans to invest up to $100 million over the next five years, betting that a cargo surge triggered by the disruption of maritime traffic during the U.S.-Israel war on Iran can be converted into durable regional shipping gains for Pakistan.